Dec 15, 20217 min
After the success of the inaugural 2020 Top 10 partnerships, we welcome back Gary Linke
to list his favourite new brand partnerships of the year and provide his own take on why they
stood out.
As with 2020, the Top 10 does not cover influencers such as Marcus Rashford and Burberry, or licensing tie-ups like Liverpool FC and the PUBG mobile game, or renewals or extensions eg Cadbury adding Greenfell Athletic to their club portfolio or Zoom expanding
their partnership with F1. These are all great deals but not for the Top 10.
Deals are listed in alphabetical order.
1) Chipotle and London Sport - “It started over a Burrito”.
As an introducer, sometimes it is best to let nature take its course. In this scenario, US
restaurant giant, Chipotle only have a presence in London and have a US positioning of
“Real Food for Real Athletes”. From a lunchtime rendez-vous between London Sport and
Chipotle in Baker Street discussions commenced.
London Sport has the mission to help to make London the most physically active city in the
world and Chipotle want to be the choice for quick meals for eaters wanting fresh ingredients
that are not re-heated or come out a freezer.
The partnership offers Chipotle community sports awards and also the two parties came
together to create the “London Sport Bowl” which launched in Chipotle Restaurants. Always
good to see an extra benefit of a brand partnership, whereby a new product is added to the
range as long as Premier League crisps don’t come back on our shelves again in their
previous format.
2) Crypto.com and AEG - 20 -year takeover of The Staples Centre
I must admit this one caught me by surprise. With some cynics in the industry dismissing
Crypto company’s business practices and describing the area of NFT’s as the “Wild West”
the owners of The Staples Centre agreed a deal until 2042 which is longer than O2 have
been sponsoring The O2 (2005).
The credibility that this association has brought Crypto.Com and their category is significant
and been a wake- up call to rights owners. Jason Miller, SVP and Head of Property Sales at
Excel Management sums up the reaction from a big naming rights deal - ‘Wow that is a company that is here to stay!”
AEG very rarely make “bad calls”. The Staples Centre deal in LA had been going since day
one of the venue opening in 1999 and at one point, AEG publicised that it was a “lifetime”
deal. Jon Stainer, MD of Nielsen Sport recently reported that in a one-week span in November after the sponsorship was announced, 3,300 articles were written about
Cyrpto.com which reached 371 million impressions, equating to $4 million in discounted media. A reported $700 million investment which represents a $584m dollar increase will change “Downtown LA” from Christmas Day 2021 for the next 2 decades
3) Dettol and the FA - The Covid effect
Several mature brands benefited from sharp sales increases causing mass shortages from
April 2020. Some of these were in the health and medicine area e.g. Panadol. Rather than
Brand Managers applauding themselves, the Dettol team got to work. The FA partnership
was not their only clever bit of product placement as Londoners saw Dettol dispensers in
tube stations and Wembley Stadium.
The FA, as still the owners of the national stadium and the national game (grassroots
football) provides another outstanding piece of product placement welcomed by players,
commuters and spectators alike on England’s playing fields.
Lifebuoy quickly followed suit with significant partnerships struck with the RFU and The ECB
covering The Hundred.
4) Getir and Tottenham Hotspur Training Kit - Re-enforcing the attraction of the
Premier League for “Start Ups”
What appealed here was the post deal interview of Getir’s UK GM, Turancan Salur with
Forbes. He highlights exposure, frequency and coverage as the big advantages of sports
partnerships.
He told the reporter that “buying an equivalent amount of time on TV Channels around the
world, during, for example, the North London Derby would be an astronomical expense. As
would the cost of acquiring banner ads on all the UK back pages that a training picture could
get.”
This goes against the regular criticism of sponsorship by brand owners and some agencies
under themes of “No Logo”, “Badging”, “Slapping” (logos) and “Old Fashioned Rights
Owners” etc etc
So, if you are an LED sales person or a CCO and you have significant coverage and
exposure to offer, “pick up the phone” and do your research on the start- ups.
5) Green Cuisine and Team GB - Power To The Plants
This partnership was announced 4 months before the actual Tokyo Olympics as Bird’s Eye
Green Cuisine became the “official plant -based supporter of Team GB”.
As someone that has worked in the food business, I completely get it. The partnership has a
perfect association and the activation opportunities to harness the support of both the UK of
the consumer and trade customers would drive trial and extend distribution assisting brands
in shelf wars.
I am also sure that brands such as Green Cuisine would welcome sports content alongside
their product- based advertising content that some users will find unappealing on their social
media feeds that are there to entertain.
In food terms with the HFFS regulations, brands that offer healthy alternatives and lack the
heavyweight media budgets of established grocery brands will hopefully look at this example
and have more conversations with sports rights owners to find the right associations.
6) Nature Valley and Aphetor
Aphetor has been described as the “Olympics for Influencers” and is a new property that
openly aims to disrupt the sports ecosystem. It takes a brave marketeer to invest in any new
property, let alone something which does not have an equivalent or anything to benchmark
against.
Arjoon Bose, Head of culture and brand experience of General Mills, the owner of Nature
Valley seems to feature regularly in the marketing press and in webinars/conferences and
has won the odd award too.
For a new property, finding commercial partners to help fund the business plan is a major
headache without “proof of concept”.
On seeing the Nature Valley case study, I not only wanted to go back to Rhodes and be 30
years younger but now completely understood what Carsten Thode, Founder of Aphetor was
explaining on his Unofficial Partner podcast.
As part of the package, Nature Valley were given 25 pieces of exciting content for their own
channels, while key influencers posted content featuring Nature Valley on their Insta,
YouTube and TikTok channels, (I do like those beach towels) - a much more scalable,
authentic and cost-efficient solution than a direct influencer marketing campaign.
With Aphetor having launched during a pandemic, I believe new physical event-based
formats that appeal to the youtube generation will start to attract what we used to call “Youth
Brands” especially in the area of wearable technology and fashion.
7) SKY and FAI Women’s National Teams - Standalone could be the way to go?
With the FAI in the marketplace looking for a replacement for Three Mobile across all their
representative teams, this announcement surprised many. SKY became the primary partner
of “just” the Women’s National Team.
I applaud this decision for both parties. Whilst BT are the primary partner of the FA home
nations and their rights covers every representative team, the FAI and SKY women’s
partnership will mean that the FAI can focus on finding a headline sponsor covering the
men’s game and their next cycle that will include the 2024 Euros and 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The FAI have announced equal pay for both men and women’s international footballers and
the women’s team are focused on the 2023 FIFA World Cup. With the qualifiers being shown
on RTE, it is a clever move by SKY and also shows purpose.
I anticipate a trend for the Barclays Super League Clubs looking more towards having
separate deals for their men’s and women’s teams. At the moment, Etihad, Three and
Emirates sponsor the likes of Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal although new partners are
coming in that partner with the women’s team only - for example, Chelsea have a new shorts
sponsorship with N + 1 Singer which is an investment bank.
8) Sonos and Liverpool - A Sound Partnership
Favourite partnerships are ones where you did not see or “hear” it coming. When a leading
brand in a new category for partnership chooses a football club the potential buyers for
sponsorship assets multiply further.
It is not unknown for competitors within the category to follow as witnessed in the second -
hand car market.
With Liverpool known for music and Anfield still one of those stadiums where singing
anthems is part of the experience, the Sonos sound system will have a whole host of global
opportunities to amplify the connection between players, fans, stadiums and music.
9) Sony and City Football Group - Out of this World
Just as Facebook went Meta and people started getting their heads around that sport rights
owners now potentially have a virtual world to sell, the Man City fans will now be able to
enter a virtual version of the Etihad Stadium.
Sony are going to create this virtual reality world of fan engagement to then set up an online
community to promote their range of products and to help current customers get their best
out of their current TVs and consoles.
No doubt sports clubs are licking their actual lips as the Metaverse will create a new revenue
stream of products and experiences also designed for fans to enjoy in the virtual world -think
fashion, skins, games, trading, property, land and transport.
Knowing how long these technology- based partnerships take to form even with physical
stadiums at the core, the contract itself must be a work of art.
10) Tik Tok and the Euros - Social media gets some skin in the game
I know that when UEFA made this announcement, it caused TikTok’s competitors some
anxiety. For years, the likes of FB, Twitter and You Tube adopted a position of “we don’t do
sponsorship”.
Yet TikTok partnered with one of the biggest shows on earth to widen and grow their users
base and keep some of their younger audience entertained for longer throughout the Euros.
Classing itself more of a digital entertainment platform TikTok wanted to break the
perception that their app is just for young teens who enjoy doing a dance and some lip
syncing.
TikTok also became partners of Burnley FC Women’s Team with live streaming of their
matches and then became the main sponsor of Wrexham who are owned by Hollywood
stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.
Gary Linke has delivered and/or renewed over 40 properties in his 20 years at the sharp end of the sports business, from naming rights, event and team partnerships and licensing programmes. You can contact him via TheMissingLinke.com